


The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

by DonnesCafe



Series: Christmas Visitations with Wedding Interludes [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU Future, All manner of things will be well, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Children, Christmas, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Love, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonnesCafe/pseuds/DonnesCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A change of plan leads to Christmas in Sussex. Last story in the series, although I'm in love with the whole extended family, so probably more stories in this universe. This last bit takes place at Christmas 2030.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Tammany for her support and the conversation about the needs of church choirs. Here's our contralto. Of course Mycroft knows one.

_Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead…_

~~~ Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_  


~~~~~  


Vigorous poundings on the door sounded through the small cottage. Mycroft straightened his hunter green and burgundy striped tie in the dappled mirror and adjusted the burgundy pocket square. He smoothed his hair and frowned. He was only sixty-one, and he disapproved of the mixture of ginger and grey. Not as attractive as Greg’s increasingly salty salt-and-pepper. But Greg apparently continued to love him anyway. 

More pounding. Greg or John would get it. One or more of Sherlock’s pack of hounds had come to fetch them, no doubt. He then heard muted baying from the lounge. His reflection took on a benevolent look. Really, they were all charming children. And he had asked for it. He had, in fact, planned for it and done everything in his power to execute his plan. As with most of his plans, he was succeeding admirably. They were lively children, and there were so many of them. Thinking of them as a pack of hounds seemed more polite than as a pandemonium of parrots or a murder of magpies, although those occasionally seemed apropos. He walked somewhat reluctantly into the lounge. 

Mike, his namesake, and Charlie, John’s namesake, were the messengers and were delivering their message animatedly to Greg and John at the same time. They were twelve year old twins, tall, whippet thin, and almost quivering with innate energy. They had Sherlock’s long, dark, wavy hair, Geneen’s burnt-almond skin and dark eyes, and raffish good looks from both of them. Ah, now he had it. A pandemonium of pirates, of course. 

Sherlock had wanted to be a pirate, and he now no doubt fancied himself captain of his own pirate crew. Mycroft toyed with the idea of casting him as Smee, but that was unfair. Perhaps Peter Pan on a good day. In that scenario, Bredon, although only eight years old, was the obvious Captain Hook, Janine was Wendy, Kate undoubtedly Tiger Lily…. Before he could continue his game of assigning them all their proper roles in Neverland, the pirates spotted him. 

“Uncle Mycroft! It’s time! Ma says to take us with you in the Volvo and the rest will go in the van! We can show you the way to the church!” The twins favored a declamatory style of discourse. 

“I’ll drive,” said Greg. He herded Mike and Charlie through the gap in the hedge and over to the neighboring cottage. He and John put on their coats and followed them. 

“How is your mother feeling?” John asked the boys. 

They turned and walked backwards, looking at Mycroft and John. “She says she's ok. Da says not. They had a fight,” said Charlie artlessly. 

And what else is new, Mycroft asked himself. His brother and his sister-in-law had managed a long, happy, and fruitful marriage thus far. When he planned it, that was what he had foreseen. He was rarely wrong. They suited each other, but they were also passionate people with tempers and strong wills. Things were usually interesting on board the pirate ship. 

“She said that she was bloody well going to sing one Christmas Eve service in her own church come hell or high water,” said Mike. 

“Then Da said something else about hell. Then they closed the door,” added Charlie. “Then Ma opened it again and said we were to get you and get the show on the road.” They all got in the battered green Volvo wagon. 

In truth, Mycroft was just as worried as Sherlock. The boys chattered and directed Greg’s driving. Mycroft tuned out and brooded. The fact that he and Greg and John were celebrating Christmas in Sussex instead of everyone coming to the London house was because the baby was due next week. Janine had been feeling unusually tired and unwell. She said she hadn’t felt up to the trip. 

Besides, she had argued, she was the best contralto in St. Margaret’s choir and Sherlock was first violin in the small ensemble of parishioners who played for the major church festival services. Since they always came to Greg and Mycroft’s for the holidays, she never got to sing at Christmas with the choir. Cyril, the choirmaster, didn’t like it and Janine felt guilty. After the first couple of Mycroft Christmas gatherings, she had confessed the difficulty to him. He promptly recruited Lucinda Thomason, an old friend who happened to be a world-class contralto with the Bavarian State Opera. Lucinda liked to come home to London for Christmas, and she was happy to sub for Janine. Besides, she owed him for that little dust-up in Berlin. Cyril was in heaven, of course, although the rest of the choir found the imposing diva a bit daunting. 

Mycroft had been worried about Janine for the last several weeks. She had always had easy pregnancies. Mike and Charlie, Max and Kate two years later, and Bredon two years after that. She always looked blooming, even more beautiful when she was pregnant, and had little morning sickness. But there had been a gap of seven years after Bredon. They almost reconciled themselves to only five in the crew, when they found out about Grace. Janine didn't have her usual energy, and Sherlock had started to worry. He sometimes found her in the bathroom vomiting and pale far into the pregnancy. He also noticed that she put often put a hand to the small of her back when she thought he wasn't watching her. When he asked about the pain in her back, she just shrugged and said, "Little Gracie must be restless.” 

Sherlock brought her up to London to see John. When John looked her over, he could find nothing out of the ordinary but he couldn’t deny that she wasn’t her usual lively self. He recommended that they find an obstetrician who dealt with late pregnancies. Mycroft had found the best specialists of course. None of them found anything wrong. Mycroft invited them to stay in the London house and offered to line up one of the obstetricians that the royals used. He had more than invited, he had practically begged. 

Janine would have none of it. Dr. Lyons in the village had delivered Kate and Max, and she didn’t want to be caught in London and away from home if little Grace decided to come early. Sherlock unexpectedly sided with Mycroft, which concerned Mycroft even more. That meant he was really worried. Janine told them both not to be old women. She was in her mid-forties and they shouldn't expect things to be quite as trouble-free. They had a memorable three-cornered fight. Janine won. So Christmas in Belgravia was suspended this year. Mycroft, Greg, and John came to stay in the cottage next door. 

Sherlock had bought the cottage to accommodate his ever-expanding household when their neighbor, George Seton, retired. George’s retirement had coincided with Sherlock’s decision to leave his practice in London at the age of only forty-eight. He had managed to keep up his detective work, and they had managed to stay in Baker Street, through the acquisition of five children. It had involved moving Sherlock's consulting room and study down to the renovated basement flat. It was a crowded, messy, busy, joyful life. Then fate intervened. 

One of Sherlock’s cases involving a murdered drug lord turned particularly nasty. Threatening notes started appearing at the flat. One evening, Janine had been standing at the window holding two-year-old Bredon, watching Da come down the street, getting home for dinner for the first time in several days. A bullet shattered the window and grazed Bredon’s temple. Mycroft had them out of Baker Street and settled in Sussex the next day. Sherlock had made the transition surprisingly smoothly. He wrote chemistry treatises, played the violin at St. Margaret’s, played chess with the vicar, ran riot with his hounds, and worked for MI6. Mycroft tried to keep that last involvement on the less dangerous side, but at least the danger was less likely to involve the family. 

“Mycroft,” Greg had a hand on his arm. Mycroft had the feeling that wasn’t the first time Greg had said his name. “We’re here.” 

~~~~~  


John got out of the car. Wind was blowing the trees around the old church, and a soft rain slicked the cobbled drive. He thought about Mary, Shae, and the boys having Christmas in London without him. John had lied to Sherlock, but not to Mycroft. He told Sherlock the rest of his family wanted to do a church youth retreat over the holidays and that he had begged off. He told Mycroft that he was worried about Janine. Something didn’t feel right to him, and he wanted to be in Sussex. The fact that Sherlock didn’t question John’s flimsy story made him even more uneasy. 

They found Sherlock, Janine, and the rest of the family inside St. Margaret’s. The uncles were to sit with the children and try to maintain order while Sherlock and Janine tended to their musical duties. Janine looked pale, but smiled at her brood. “Now, you all try not to shame me in from of your uncles,” she said. “But I must say that you all look grand.” 

Sherlock didn’t look at anyone but Janine. He was shifting his violin case from one hand to the other. He stepped up to her and asked her something very quietly. John couldn’t hear what he said. She nodded. Sherlock’s lips thinned. He handed the violin case to John. “I’ll be right back.” He tucked one of Janine’s hands into the crook of his arm and absently patted it. 

“I’m going to take my stubborn Juno to the choir-room.” They headed off toward a door at the back of the church. 

“Is she ok?” Greg asked. 

John shrugged. “I took her blood pressure this afternoon. A little low. She says she’s ok and for all of us to quit fussing like broody hens. Says she’s the only one on the nest and to sod off. So I did.” 

Sherlock came back down the aisle and held out his hand for the violin case. He looked paler than usual. John handed it to him. “Is she all right?” Sherlock shrugged. He looked at them all and smiled. It looked forced. 

“She says so. Alright, you lot, sort yourselves out and sit.” Both sets of twins slid obediently into a pew. Mycroft and Greg followed suit. Kate and Max, both as musical as their parents, took out hymnbooks. Dark red hair blended as they put their heads close together in order to whisper an evaluation of Cyril’s song choices in the order of service. Mike and Charlie took out their iPhones and started playing a game involving magicians, zombies, and apocalypse. 

Bredon remained standing at the end of the pew. He and his father looked at each other. Witchy blue-green eyes looked into witchy blue-green eyes. He was only eight, but the pale, thin, serious face that confronted his father’s was its mirror image. “She isn’t,” said Bredon quietly. “She isn't all right. She didn’t make me wear the tie. She didn’t even make me comb my hair.” He had the same dark tangle of waves as his father. John resented the fact that at fifty-four, Sherlock’s hair was still dark as ever, with only a few interesting white streaks that suggested adventure more than age. Damn him. Bredon continued, “You forgot your violin and had to go back for it. It isn’t all right.” 

Sherlock suddenly knelt down before his son, put his violin case on the floor. Eye to eye. His voice very quiet, only for Bredon and John. “I will be here, whatever happens. John is here. We will take care of your mother no matter what happens.” Silence. Then a slight nod from Bredon. He put one small hand on his father’s arm. Sherlock’s hand came up and squeezed it. Then he grabbed his violin case, stood up, and was gone. Bredon looked up at John. John looked down into Sherlock’s eyes. God help us, another one, he thought. He motioned Bredon into the pew and sat beside him. Bredon’s hand found its way into his. John was glad he had come to Sussex. 

~~~~~  


Mycroft was looking at the stained glass. Fourteenth century, he thought. Really quite a lovely church. Sherlock seemed to be the leader of the little musical ensemble up front. Three violins, oboe, cello, flute, a viola de gamba. The service hadn’t gotten underway yet, so they were the opening act. William Byrd now. Beautiful. 

Suddenly someone in full vestments came up from behind the altar and walked down into the musicians in mid-song. The vicar. He put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and leaned down. Mycroft felt the blood leave his face. Sherlock stood up and the players around him straggled to a ragged halt. He moved quickly, knocking over his music stand in his haste, Stradivarius on the floor. He disappeared behind the altar. Mycroft looked over at John, but John was already in the aisle, heading for the back. Mycroft reached out just in time to stop Bredon from following him. 

~~~~~  


John entered the choir room and a scene of confusion. People milling around, raised voices. Sherlock was on the floor, kneeling beside Janine. 

“Has someone called an ambulance?” John shouted as he cleared the door. 

“Yes, yes,” the vicar came up to him. “Her water broke, but the bleeding….,” John noticed reddish stains on the hem of his white cassock. 

John brushed past him and knelt on Janine’s other side. He didn’t look at Sherlock. “Janine,” he said. Her eyes were closed. “Janine?” Unconscious. Rapid pulse. And there was blood in the fluids that pooled around her. Too much blood. 

“Is anyone here a doctor? A nurse?” 

A large, competent looking woman stepped forward. “Nurse,” she said shortly. “What do you need?” 

“At least hot water. Disinfectant, alcohol, something. Gloves if you can find some. Clean cloth, sheet, towels, anything… you know.” 

“I’ll get them,” she said and went out at a run. 

“Vicar, get everybody out of here now. Sherlock, that includes you.” 

“No.” One word from Sherlock. 

The vicar started herding. Greg came to the door. Thank god. 

“Greg, get Sherlock out. Now.” He did. John never knew how, because he was totally focused on Janine. 

The nurse came back in record time with another woman helping her carry what they could find. He washed his hands as best he could, put on the gloves. Praying that he wasn’t making things worse, he tried to remember his obstetrics rotation, tried to figure out what was going on while Nurse X monitored Janine’s pulse. 

When he figured it out, it wasn’t good. Where the hell was the ambulance? Placental abruption. Separation of the placenta from the uterine wall before delivery. Serious bleeding. Neonatal deaths occur in ten to thirty percent of cases. Rupture of membranes. Uterine decompression. If he thought about Sherlock, about Bredon, about anything personal he couldn’t do this. The statistics weren’t good. He had to get the baby out now. 

~~~~~  


Grace was born at 11:37 on Christmas Eve. The sodding ambulance had gotten there in time to take them both to the hospital to be checked out, but not in time to do much of the bloody work. John was still taking deep breaths and trying not to think about what could have happened. He had delivered tiny, perfect Grace, now Grace Johanna. Nurse Maude Sanders, as he had learned, had stopped Janine’s bleeding as best she could, kept her wrapped up to prevent shock, and kept telling her that she and Grace were going to be perfectly all right. True, as it happened. 

She also bullied the ambulance drivers into letting Sherlock ride with Janine and Grace in the ambulance, assessing that he wouldn’t stop shaking unless she got her way. 

“John, I…,” he said before he got in. “You…. What you…,” He looked a bit shocky to John, but it wouldn't do any good to say anything about it now. The rain and wind had picked up. His hair was plastered to his skull with a mixture of sweat and rain. 

“Shut up. I know. Get in.” John hugged him, shoved him into the ambulance, and closed the doors behind him. 

“John, I….,” Mycroft stood beside him. He was holding Sherlock's violin case and also seemed to be rendered speechless. John hugged him. Mycroft hugged back. They divided the children between the Volvo and the van and followed the ambulance to the hospital. John drove the Volvo and put Bredon in the front seat. 

Max and Kate were arguing loudly in the back about who got Grace for special sib. This was a role in which an elder took special care of a younger and initiated them into the Holmes Family Code and Customs. Kate belonged to Mike, Max belonged to Charlie. Bredon was supposed to belong to Kate, because she was two minutes older than Max. So Max claimed Grace as his. Kate countered that Bredon refused to belong to anyone but himself and Sherlock, so Grace was hers. It was loud in the back seat, but John didn’t have the heart to shush them. He was just glad they were all here to belong to each other. 

“Will they be all right?” asked the small voice in the front. Bredon was looking straight ahead. His hands were twisted in his lap. 

John took his eyes off the little hands and put them back sternly on the road. It was raining, the road was slick, and the temperature was dropping. There would be snow for Christmas Day. He did take one hand carefully off the wheel, tightening his grip with the other. He put his hand lightly down on the two small ones. 

“Word of honour, Bredon. They’re both going to be fine. I’m a doctor. I know.” The hands relaxed. All would be well, thought John. All manner of things would be well. He reminded himself to call Mary from the hospital.

~~ FINIS ~~  



End file.
